An Appetite for Gourmet Cheese Grows in India

Cabecou, a soft French goat cheese made at The Cheese Collective, an artisanal cheese producer in Mumbai.

Photo courtesy The Cheese Collective

After taking pictures of gourmet food for eight years, Indian photographer Prateeksh Mehra decided to make his own. Mr. Mehra and his brother Agnay started experimenting with soft French cheeses in their basement, braving the humid climate of Mumbai.

“We were worried that Indians would be intimidated by bloomy rinds,” said the 30-year-old Mr. Mehra, referring to the edible white mold that grows on the outside of the cheese. “We were shocked by how much people liked them,” he said.

The Mehras’ cheese company, The Spotted Cow Fromagerie, which sells “Bombrie” and “Camembay” as local takes on the French originals Brie and Camembert, is one of a growing handful of artisanal cheese producers in India.

Cheese in India once meant only paneer, the traditional, unaged farmer cheese made across the country. But, with rising incomes and more Indians exposed to foreign cheeses, the market for Western-style cheeses is growing.

“We have seen [gourmet cheese] sales grow exponentially… it contributes to just short of a tenth of our revenues,” said Mohit Khattar, managing director of Godrej Nature’s Basket, a premium grocery chain.

From a small group of urban elites who smuggled artisanal cheeses back from Europe, Nature’s Basket has seen its consumer base expand to include a wider range of customers who may not have traveled abroad but are keen to experiment with food, said Mr. Khattar.

Camembert, a soft French cheese, made at Mango Hill, an artisanal cheese producer in the southern city of Pondicherry

Photo courtesy The Cheese Collective

Cheese sales account for just a sliver of India’s 700 billion-rupee ($11.6 billion) dairy industry. Last year cheese sales totaled about 10 billion rupees. Of that, gourmet cheeses accounted for a small fraction.

Still, it is big enough that the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which sells Amul cheeses, has over the past 15 years added Italian Mozzarella, Swiss Emmental and Dutch Gouda to its repertoire.

While sales are still small, some gourmet producers say they are growing rapidly.

“People want to buy the same fresh cheeses they get at Italian restaurants,” said Puneet Gupta of Exito Gourmet, a food company based in the northern city of Chandigarh.

Exito advertises its cheeses as “the best of Italy, made in India.” Under the guidance of a chef from Naples, the company makes soft Italian cheeses like Buffalo Mozzarella, Ricotta and Mascarpone in the northern state of Haryana, and ships them to around 500 stores and restaurants across India.

Storage and transportation are the biggest challenges cheese makers face in addition to India’s cheese-hostile climate, which is better suited for processed cheese, sold in sealed tin cans and boxes that can be stored without refrigeration for months.

But travel abroad has introduced the Indian elite to an array of creamy-to-stinky cheeses, lowering their appetite for the mass-produced blocks which fancy cheese makers deride as “not real cheese.”

Fresh goat cheese made at The Cheese Collective, an artisanal cheese producer in Mumbai.

Photo courtesy The Cheese Collective

Mansi Jasani, 28, who learned how to make cheese in Vermont, and worked at Murray’s, a specialty cheese store in New York, returned home and started The Cheese Collective in 2013.

Using goat’s milk from the southern state of Karnataka, Ms. Jasani makes three varieties — plain, herbed and fruity — of chevre, fresh goat’s cheese, which she sells from her home.

“I wanted to get other people to love cheese, to appreciate its flavors and textures,” said Ms. Jasani.

In the hilly town of Coonoor, Tina Khan teaches visitors at her family-run farm how to make simple cheeses at home.

“When I first started, people wouldn’t buy. They would taste and say, ‘very nice,’” said Ms. Khan, who began teaching herself to make cheese in 2004. “Now, I see a lot of people wanting to make cheese.”

Ms. Khan, who makes around 7 kilograms of cheese a day, says she doesn’t want to scale up production because she only uses milk from the cows on her farm. “Demand for gourmet cheese has exploded… there’s suddenly a big awareness,” she said.

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